Seib & Wessel: What We’re Reading Wednesday

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden

Vice President Joe Biden and China’s new president, Xi Jinping, have developed a personal rapport in recent years, writes Andrew Browne (@abrownewsj), a relationship that could prove important as Biden visits Beijing and attempts to reduce rising tensions in the region triggered by China’s new air-defense zone in the East China Sea, which the U.S., Japan and South Korea have all defied. [WSJ]

Tension among rival commodity interests poses a threat to getting a farm bill through Congress, writes David Rogers. Cotton and rice are taking shots at corn and soybeans. Southern sugar cane and sugar beet farms are pursuing different lobbying strategies. [Politico]

Liberal Muscovites are watching the events in Kiev with rapt attention and a hint of jealousy. Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) lists five reasons such unrest won’t happen in Russia. No. 2: Ukraine has a real, if raucous, poorly functioning political system; Russia doesn’t. [New Republic]

While Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu wants to keep attention focused on Iran’s nuclear program, Secretary of State John Kerry has other ideas. He plans to present a new plan for security arrangements in the West Bank following the establishment of a Palestinian state during a meeting with Netanyahu Thursday. [Haaretz]

Prominent economist Stanley Fischer, until recently Israel’s central banker, says that Israel is not looking for peace “to the extent that it should” and that it is “divided between those who want to settle the West Bank and those who seek peace.” [Haaretz]

Mark Barabak (@markzbarabak) writes that the combination of a primary challenge from tea-party favorite Matt Bevin and a formidable general election contender in Alison Lundergan Grimes presents Sen. Mitch McConnell “the most serious threat ever faced by the Senate Republican leader: challenges from the right and left that promise to make Kentucky’s Senate race next year one of the nastiest and most expensive in the country.” [Los Angeles Times]

As Paul Ryan grapples with crafting a bipartisan budget deal, Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) is skeptical that he will endanger a potential 2016 bid by playing ball with Democrats. With the tea party’s continuing stronghold, Walsh says Ryan is unlikely to risk being accused of abandoning his party. [Salon]

Sign of the Times

Minor milestones we’ve spotted:

Seventeen of the 20 emerging-market stock markets included in S&P Dow Jones indices ended November in the red. [Reuters]

CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production reached 9.7 gigatons of carbon in 2012, plus or minus 5%. That is 58% higher than emissions in 1990, the year often used as a benchmark for emissions trends. [Worldwatch Institute]

More than half of America’s working-age families with children under age 18 (approximately 20.1 million families) have annual incomes of $60,000 or below. [Hamilton Project]

Fifty-one percent of Americans believe the U.S. does too much to help solve world problems; 28% say it does the right amount; 17% say too little. [Pew Research Center]

Private developers have built about 310,000 off-campus housing units for college students in the past decade, 51,000 of them delivered in the current academic year. Another 50,000 are expected next year. [WSJ]

Almost two-thirds of female journalists have experienced intimidation, threats or abuse in relation to their work and the majority of those experiences occurred in the workplace, according to a global survey. [INSI]

The median grade at Harvard College is an A-, and the most frequently awarded grade is a straight A. [The Crimson]

Carnival Corp. says there were 127 alleged crimes (including five suspicious deaths and 38 reports of rape) on its cruise ships between July 2010 and June 2013, during which it carried 77 million people during that period. [AP]

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.